As the sibling says, often in parliamentary democracies you get the tyranny of the minority, which can be worse then the tyranny of the majority. Canada's current government, a majority which with the party discipline that Westminster type governments have, can pass almost any laws it wants, was elected with 38% of the voters that bothered to vote.
At least the Monarchy has been trained from birth (or a very young age in the case of Elizabeth II as it was only after her uncle was fired for fascist tendencies that she really became heir apparent) for their job. Note Prince William being sent on combat missions in Afghanistan compared to a Congress that OKed military action without any children in the military or Bush the youngers military experience. Do you really think having Bush or Obama is superiour to a Monarchy, especially a Monarch that can be fired by Parliament.
Obviously University education needs to be limited as society only needs X amount of Doctors, engineers, physics majors and even fewer liberal arts. Society also needs plumbers and electricians, farmers, and even burger flippers so ideally people would get educated in what they have an interest and talent for with tests and prior performance as deciding factors in what a person gets educated in. The current situation where a university education is the new high school diploma is unworkable if only due to costs. BTW, in most democracies it isn't 49% getting tyrannized by the 51%. In my country currently it's 62% getting tyrannized by 38% (even worse numbers if considering the people who didn't bother to vote) though with th
It's the natural end game of the free market. Business discovers that they make more money through the entity called government, control government for their benefit, and after a while here we are. A good example is the fire insurance industry. At first they paid off fire damage. Then they hired a fire department as it was cheaper to put out fires then to pay out for burned out homes/businesses, especially if the fire grew as they have a tendency to do. Then after a particular large fire they paid a politician to create a public fire department as they got the benefit of a fire department without paying for it and had less pay outs as more fires were contained by the public fire department. It was also very easy to spin it as a public benefit to have it as a taxpayer funded department as it was a public benefit. Most industries end up making the same decisions, maximum profits by socializing as much as possible while still having private profits. To expect anything else out of a free market is wishful thinking, especially in a democracy where it costs money to get elected.
The problem is when they're informed by hearsay, half-truths and out right fantasy. Do you want to be tried by a jury who has already decided that not only are you guilty but are guilty of the most heinous crimes when they show up for jury duty? When the press is doing all the speech and you're sitting in jail, it is hard to counter the speech. As for the scientist part, the sibling made the points that I would. The cases I can think of that have had publication bans have been pretty horrible, Paul Barnardo (sp?), the pig farmer Pickton are the only examples I can think of and even people like them deserve a fair trial, as much a right in Canada as freedom of expression.
Not to mention a certain person who has been forced to seek asylum in Russia for practicing free speech. I'm not aware of any exceptions in the American Bill of Rights for national secrets. Of course there can be conflicts in rights, eg the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled that in some cases an individuals right to fundamental justice can, for a while such as the length of a court case, override the groups right to speech as having an impartial jury is important to having a fair trial.
I don't fault any company from making use of a loophole unless they wrote the actual law to create the loophole they are using.
And this is the problem with the American system. Politicians need fantastic amounts of money to win elections and it is cheaper for company A to make campaign contribution on the understanding that they can write a new tax loophole then to actually pay the tax. Of course companies B to Z also take advantage of the new loophole and then make campaign contributions so they can also write new tax law which company A also takes advantage off. Rinse and repeat a few times and you have the current system where companies A to Z all claim they're just taking advantage of existing loopholes.
The douchebaggy comes in when company A gives a million dollars in political contributions on the understanding that the tax laws will be changed to save company A a billion dollars in taxes. It's all legal bribery.
As I remember it, there was some discussion about the affects of CO2 vs soot IIRC with discussion about how much CO2 induced warming would be counteracted by soot caused global dimming. Along with a cold trend the media did harp on the global cooling angle and without an internet we didn't have much access to actual science articles. The models also were much more primitive then. By the '80's it was becoming obvious that the CO2 would have the larger influence especially with a lot of other pollutants getting cleaned up. This also raises questions about the affects of Chinese industrialization, especially the large number of dirty coal plants. Don't see much discussion about whether it is counteracting the warming or not and how much. Of course the thing with soot is it has a short life time compared to CO2 and even if it is delaying warming, once the Chinese get more health conscious and clean up their act temperature might go up fast as we know the quantity of CO2 is fast increasing.
As far as I know Nixon didn't personally spy on anyone and there is no evidence that Obama is personally spying on anyone either. It's the government (and party in at least Nixon's case) doing the spying and they have been doing it as long as it has been technically possible. Civil war they tapped telegraph lines, prohibition the Supreme Court ruled that tapping phones didn't violate the 4th amendment as long as they didn't break into anyones house to tap their phone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmstead_v._United_States. Under J Edgar Hoover the FBI spied on everyone they could and now with modern tech... Obama is a massive disappointment but to act like he started the spying is wrong.
The American Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, as designed is totally broken as it is impossible to follow so the politicians have to ignore it which becomes a habit along with courts that rule that, eg "Congress will make no law" actually means something completely different. Look at Snowden, no-one is bitching that he is hiding in Russia due to practicing his first amendment rights, everyone agrees that when the Constitution says something that actually it means something else. Free speech except in the case of child porn, national security, bad words etc. My Country wrote our Bill of Rights (and the rest of our constitution) to avoid the American mistake of writing one that sounds good but is routinely broken which just encourages the politicians to break it more instead of changing it. Shit they couldn't even have been bothered to amend it to make the Air Force legal, an amendment that would have passed easily. A law or constitution that can not be followed is worthless.
You sent an email to Harper complaining about your Charter rights being violated? If Harper sees the email he'll have a good laugh. Same with your MP if he's a Conservative, they love the surveillance state and would be doing it even if the Americans weren't, if only to find out your politics and whether you're a Conservative supporter so they know whether to screw with you.
Interesting, thanks for the link. It appears I'm only half wrong as the sisters have 0.75 relatedness instead of 0.50, still not clones who have 1.0 relatedness. Sex selection is weird and varies a lot between different groups.
That's only true for the larger more powerful countries. For smaller (population or area) countries with large neighbors the largest threat is usually the neighbor. Almost all my life I've considered the largest threat to my freedom (and even my life) to be the United States of America, a country that seems to believe rights only belong to citizens so it's fine to abuse other countries. A country with a long history of oath breaking who can't even follow their own constitution. My country was actually created in response to that powerful neighbor at a time when they'd killed millions(?) of their own citizens over a power structure between the individual States and the Federal government.
As the AC said, ants and bees are mostly sisters with a few males who only have the job of fertilizing the queen. No more genetically identical then any sisters. Probably varies with the species whether one male or several impregnate the queen.
Warnings on some types of sites are nice, hopefully volunteerly perhaps with a some social pressure. Most porn sites seem to have a front page that states that there is porn here, enter at your own risk. Even the radio (CBC) will often preface certain stories with a warning about disturbing content. Makes it easier to make an informed choice.
I believe that Larry Flint of Hustler fame successfully argued that the "indecent" magazine Hustler was part of the press and protected by the first amendment. The problem with the American Bill of Rights, too many Americans, especially politicians and the judiciary, willing to interpret it in weird ways such as speech doesn't include "indecent" speech.
This is why America is hated. The average American seems to think that rights only apply to American citizens even though their Bill of Rights talks about people. They don't even think that non-citizens in their country deserve habeas corpus, little well a right to a trial and they're perfectly fine with killing people outside of their country
Perhaps I should have replied to your first post which had this,
"Actually no, fuck the terrorists, they're third world noobs living in mud huts and the best they could do in 12 years of trying realyl hard is to hijack a few planes with knives. You have more to fear from your own government than any terrorist."
And that's assuming, of course, that they really did it to begin with. I'm not about to claim otherwise, but the evidence is actually pretty thin and there is a lot of counter-evidence. That's just the truth.
It was unclear what you were talking about. Not deserving "flamebait" but deserving being ignored. Context was really not clear.
You're unclear about whether talking about the 9/11 hijackers or the GPS spoofers. I first thought that you were talking about 9/11 where the evidence is pretty clear that someone flew some planes into some buildings. I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment on the GPS spoofing though it seems possible.
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As the sibling says, often in parliamentary democracies you get the tyranny of the minority, which can be worse then the tyranny of the majority. Canada's current government, a majority which with the party discipline that Westminster type governments have, can pass almost any laws it wants, was elected with 38% of the voters that bothered to vote.
At least the Monarchy has been trained from birth (or a very young age in the case of Elizabeth II as it was only after her uncle was fired for fascist tendencies that she really became heir apparent) for their job. Note Prince William being sent on combat missions in Afghanistan compared to a Congress that OKed military action without any children in the military or Bush the youngers military experience. Do you really think having Bush or Obama is superiour to a Monarchy, especially a Monarch that can be fired by Parliament.
Obviously University education needs to be limited as society only needs X amount of Doctors, engineers, physics majors and even fewer liberal arts. Society also needs plumbers and electricians, farmers, and even burger flippers so ideally people would get educated in what they have an interest and talent for with tests and prior performance as deciding factors in what a person gets educated in. The current situation where a university education is the new high school diploma is unworkable if only due to costs.
BTW, in most democracies it isn't 49% getting tyrannized by the 51%. In my country currently it's 62% getting tyrannized by 38% (even worse numbers if considering the people who didn't bother to vote) though with th
It's the natural end game of the free market. Business discovers that they make more money through the entity called government, control government for their benefit, and after a while here we are.
A good example is the fire insurance industry. At first they paid off fire damage. Then they hired a fire department as it was cheaper to put out fires then to pay out for burned out homes/businesses, especially if the fire grew as they have a tendency to do. Then after a particular large fire they paid a politician to create a public fire department as they got the benefit of a fire department without paying for it and had less pay outs as more fires were contained by the public fire department. It was also very easy to spin it as a public benefit to have it as a taxpayer funded department as it was a public benefit.
Most industries end up making the same decisions, maximum profits by socializing as much as possible while still having private profits. To expect anything else out of a free market is wishful thinking, especially in a democracy where it costs money to get elected.
The problem is when they're informed by hearsay, half-truths and out right fantasy. Do you want to be tried by a jury who has already decided that not only are you guilty but are guilty of the most heinous crimes when they show up for jury duty? When the press is doing all the speech and you're sitting in jail, it is hard to counter the speech. As for the scientist part, the sibling made the points that I would.
The cases I can think of that have had publication bans have been pretty horrible, Paul Barnardo (sp?), the pig farmer Pickton are the only examples I can think of and even people like them deserve a fair trial, as much a right in Canada as freedom of expression.
In most of the West that would be blatantly illegal. Might be hard to prove though.
Not to mention a certain person who has been forced to seek asylum in Russia for practicing free speech. I'm not aware of any exceptions in the American Bill of Rights for national secrets.
Of course there can be conflicts in rights, eg the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled that in some cases an individuals right to fundamental justice can, for a while such as the length of a court case, override the groups right to speech as having an impartial jury is important to having a fair trial.
I don't fault any company from making use of a loophole unless they wrote the actual law to create the loophole they are using.
And this is the problem with the American system. Politicians need fantastic amounts of money to win elections and it is cheaper for company A to make campaign contribution on the understanding that they can write a new tax loophole then to actually pay the tax. Of course companies B to Z also take advantage of the new loophole and then make campaign contributions so they can also write new tax law which company A also takes advantage off. Rinse and repeat a few times and you have the current system where companies A to Z all claim they're just taking advantage of existing loopholes.
The douchebaggy comes in when company A gives a million dollars in political contributions on the understanding that the tax laws will be changed to save company A a billion dollars in taxes. It's all legal bribery.
As I remember it, there was some discussion about the affects of CO2 vs soot IIRC with discussion about how much CO2 induced warming would be counteracted by soot caused global dimming. Along with a cold trend the media did harp on the global cooling angle and without an internet we didn't have much access to actual science articles. The models also were much more primitive then. By the '80's it was becoming obvious that the CO2 would have the larger influence especially with a lot of other pollutants getting cleaned up.
This also raises questions about the affects of Chinese industrialization, especially the large number of dirty coal plants. Don't see much discussion about whether it is counteracting the warming or not and how much. Of course the thing with soot is it has a short life time compared to CO2 and even if it is delaying warming, once the Chinese get more health conscious and clean up their act temperature might go up fast as we know the quantity of CO2 is fast increasing.
As far as I know Nixon didn't personally spy on anyone and there is no evidence that Obama is personally spying on anyone either. It's the government (and party in at least Nixon's case) doing the spying and they have been doing it as long as it has been technically possible. Civil war they tapped telegraph lines, prohibition the Supreme Court ruled that tapping phones didn't violate the 4th amendment as long as they didn't break into anyones house to tap their phone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmstead_v._United_States. Under J Edgar Hoover the FBI spied on everyone they could and now with modern tech...
Obama is a massive disappointment but to act like he started the spying is wrong.
The American Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, as designed is totally broken as it is impossible to follow so the politicians have to ignore it which becomes a habit along with courts that rule that, eg "Congress will make no law" actually means something completely different.
Look at Snowden, no-one is bitching that he is hiding in Russia due to practicing his first amendment rights, everyone agrees that when the Constitution says something that actually it means something else. Free speech except in the case of child porn, national security, bad words etc.
My Country wrote our Bill of Rights (and the rest of our constitution) to avoid the American mistake of writing one that sounds good but is routinely broken which just encourages the politicians to break it more instead of changing it. Shit they couldn't even have been bothered to amend it to make the Air Force legal, an amendment that would have passed easily.
A law or constitution that can not be followed is worthless.
The summary wasn't clear about where he was located but as far as I know there aren't too many countries that allow unrestricted ownership of weapons.
The Canadian Supreme Court has actually ruled that our equivalent of the 4th amendment is actually a right to privacy.
You sent an email to Harper complaining about your Charter rights being violated? If Harper sees the email he'll have a good laugh. Same with your MP if he's a Conservative, they love the surveillance state and would be doing it even if the Americans weren't, if only to find out your politics and whether you're a Conservative supporter so they know whether to screw with you.
Interesting, thanks for the link. It appears I'm only half wrong as the sisters have 0.75 relatedness instead of 0.50, still not clones who have 1.0 relatedness.
Sex selection is weird and varies a lot between different groups.
Eh?
You shouldn't exaggerate, it's as likely to be a young girl the "family values guy" is cheating with.
That's only true for the larger more powerful countries. For smaller (population or area) countries with large neighbors the largest threat is usually the neighbor.
Almost all my life I've considered the largest threat to my freedom (and even my life) to be the United States of America, a country that seems to believe rights only belong to citizens so it's fine to abuse other countries. A country with a long history of oath breaking who can't even follow their own constitution.
My country was actually created in response to that powerful neighbor at a time when they'd killed millions(?) of their own citizens over a power structure between the individual States and the Federal government.
As the AC said, ants and bees are mostly sisters with a few males who only have the job of fertilizing the queen. No more genetically identical then any sisters. Probably varies with the species whether one male or several impregnate the queen.
Warnings on some types of sites are nice, hopefully volunteerly perhaps with a some social pressure.
Most porn sites seem to have a front page that states that there is porn here, enter at your own risk.
Even the radio (CBC) will often preface certain stories with a warning about disturbing content.
Makes it easier to make an informed choice.
I believe that Larry Flint of Hustler fame successfully argued that the "indecent" magazine Hustler was part of the press and protected by the first amendment.
The problem with the American Bill of Rights, too many Americans, especially politicians and the judiciary, willing to interpret it in weird ways such as speech doesn't include "indecent" speech.
This is why America is hated. The average American seems to think that rights only apply to American citizens even though their Bill of Rights talks about people. They don't even think that non-citizens in their country deserve habeas corpus, little well a right to a trial and they're perfectly fine with killing people outside of their country
Perhaps I should have replied to your first post which had this,
"Actually no, fuck the terrorists, they're third world noobs living in mud huts and the best they could do in 12 years of trying realyl hard is to hijack a few planes with knives. You have more to fear from your own government than any terrorist."
And that's assuming, of course, that they really did it to begin with. I'm not about to claim otherwise, but the evidence is actually pretty thin and there is a lot of counter-evidence. That's just the truth.
It was unclear what you were talking about. Not deserving "flamebait" but deserving being ignored. Context was really not clear.
You're unclear about whether talking about the 9/11 hijackers or the GPS spoofers. I first thought that you were talking about 9/11 where the evidence is pretty clear that someone flew some planes into some buildings. I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment on the GPS spoofing though it seems possible.